New York UniversityE-Mail authorJONATHAN ZIMMERMAN is assistant professor of educational history, New York University. He is the author of Distilling Democracy: Alcohol Education in America’s Public Schools, 1880-1925. (University Press of Kansas, 1999).

The author considers citizen action as an explanation for the decline of the traditional curriculum and the rise of a more practical differentiated curriculum in U.S. schools during the first half of the twentieth century.

This commentary considers the case of Jill Bloomberg, a principal who was questioned about her political affiliations. It argues that teachers have the right to speak their minds, but they also have to let students make up their minds.

Do you favor censorship in the schools?
Of course not. If you’re like most readers of this journal, you sneer at the very idea. “Censorship” conjures images of rabid Christian conservatives, snooping about school districts to remove Harry Potter or Catcher in the Rye. But you’re a good-hearted liberal, of course, a tolerant tribune of “free thought” and “open dialogue.” The censor is always the other guy, or so you like to think.

If we really want to improve historical understanding in this country, we’ll create new venues—and new incentives—for public engagement and instruction. Or we can continue to speak exclusively with each other, acting shocked—shocked!—when nobody else understands us.

Let’s be clear: nobody deserves the hateful vitriol that the Rutgers and Duke athletes have received. But nobody deserves to get into college just because they can run or jump or shoot, either. Even as we fight to curb racism and sexism from our society, then, we might pause to consider the unjust advantages that athletes hold over us all.